[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

And one of the earlier quoters, from before the time of the King James Bible translation, is more fully available. (Incidentally, more than one of those earlier quotes was connected with men involved in the King James Bible, although perhaps only one was directly a translator, as indicated.)

On post 30 we had:

John Whitgift
A godlie sermon preched before the Queenes Maiestie... (1574)
"...ye straine at a Gnat, & swallow..."

These next are from around 1575-1590.

http://books.google.com/books?id=a6ANAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA80
The life and acts of John Whitgift D. D the Third and Last Lord Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Vol III by John Strype (orig 1718)

Ob modicas causas scindunt pacem Ecclesiae, et corpus In' Christi :

e. For slight causes they break the peace of the Church, and the body of Christ; saith one, of his time. Another saith, Loquuntur pacem, fyc. i. e. Peace is in their mouth, but contention in their actions. These be they, of whom Christ speaketh, They straine at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

Also in another book, we see Whitgift using the phrase both ways, and being accused of being a Pharisee who strains at gnats .

http://books.google.com/books?id=WDMJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA522
The Works of John Whitgift

and these, walking in the streets, bang down their heads, look austerely, and in company sigh much, and seldom or never laugh : the Pharisees strained out a gnat, and swallowed down a camel.

Whereas M. Doctor compareth us with the Pharisees, and saith we do all to be seen of men, and that we hold down our heads in the streets, and strain at a gnat swallowing down a camel; because they are in all men's knowledge, I will leave it to them to judge of the truth of those things.

Shalom,
Steven

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Earlier I indicated that Noah Webster and Adam Clarke were early accusers, around 1810-1820 and I especially discussed Webster a bit. Noah Webster wrote his own Bible version, an attempted language update and improvement that was an abject failure that quickly fell by the wayside. Although ironically you can catch it today on at least one of the net Bible sites as an historical oddity .

Now we discuss another earlier Bible translator, upset .. straining away at our robust gnat.

The original accusation (or closer to original, at least the first easily remembered) was more a strange English grammatical accusation, not a translational complaint. Given by Bishop Robert Lowth, grammatical accuser of the King James Bible, Shakespeare and the Kitchen Sink. Possibly around 1762, here is the 1775 edition of his book.

http://books.google.com/books?id=xcQDAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA167
A short introduction to English grammar: with critical notes [by R. Lowth].

"Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Matt, xxiii. 24. (Gr.) which strain out, or take a gnat out of the liquor by straining it : the impropriety of the Preposition has wholly destroyed the meaning of the phrase.

This strange view of Lowth was repeated in grammars of the 1800's including :

Charles M. Ingersoll - 1825
Roswell Chamberlain Smith - 1834
Lindley Murray - 1843

Then in the mid-1800's came forth a top-rung accuser, the Rev. Dean Trench (Richard Chevenix Trench) mentioned earlier in the thread by Matthew. Dean Trench had many ideas for 'correcting' the Bible. And Trench even quoted the words above of Lowth straining at the gnat in his 1858 "On the Authorized Version of the New Testament: In Connection with Some Proposals for its Revision". Combined along with the misprint canard and other mis-attempts and confusions.

================================================== =============

Returning to Robert Lowth, here is a smidgen that helps with the picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lowth
Robert Lowth, D. D. Lord Bishop of London FRS (27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) was a Bishop of the Church of England, a professor of poetry at Oxford University and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of English grammar,

Bishop Lowth made a translation of the Bible. ... Lowth is also remembered for his publication in 1762 of A Short Introduction to English Grammar. .... Lowth's method included criticising "false syntax"; his examples of false syntax were culled from Shakespeare, the King James Bible, John Donne, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and other famous writers. His understanding of grammar, like that of all linguists of his period, was based largely on the study of Latin, a misapplication according to critics of a later generation (and his own stated principles; he condemned "forcing the English under the rules of a foreign Language") ...

Notice how many King James Bible accusers are trying to write their own personal versions and translations and updates and corrections ?

Ecclesiastes 1:9
The thing that hath been,
it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun.

Shalom,
Steven

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Now for a nice contrast to the stiffness and stuffiness of Bishop Robert Lowth. We move back a bit to a man who knew a bit of Latin and Greek and the Bible and ancient writings. Desiderius Erasmus !

Not surprisingly, Erasmus was well aware of the saying in Matthew. And Erasmus had some critics who were gnat-strainers, even straining at the gnat of the Erasmus view of religion. Remember Erasmus was quite a critic of RCC mishegas, ultimately graduating all the way to the 'Index of Forbidden Books' - the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

First, for a bit of orientation:

Plautus wrote theater e.g Miles Gloriosus, Amphitryon, Menaechmi and Amphitruo, the later considered to influence Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, an apt description for the writings of the modern version gnat-fighters. Full name - Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184 BCE), commonly known as Plautus.

While Pogglo Bracchiolini (1380-1459) was secretary to five popes and famous for his jests and opinions 'more studious of wit than of truth'. Pogglo's satire did not spare popes and cardinals and Facetiae was published in 1470. (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1890 and other sources) and is available online in the 1879 translation to English.

Preserved Smith describes the Erasmus comment as follows.

http://www.archive.org/stream/erasmusastudyofh013578mbp
Erasmus A Study Of His Life Ideals And Place In History - Preserved Smith - p. 298

Meantime Erasmus was busy defending his work against other critics. ... It is nonsense to say that he has ridiculed religion. As for the charge of lasciviousness in the dialogue between the youth and the harlot, he answers that the critics who strain at his gnat swallow the camels of Plautus and Pogglo.

So were those critics who strained at the gnat of the Erasmus view of religion, were they simply filtering it out, straining it away ? Or were they making a big hubbub, a lot of noise, a lot of show ?

The answer, my friend, is flying with the gnat.

Shalom,
Steven

[Brother Tim]

Steven, with all of your wealth of research, have you found the life span of the common gnat? This one must be the Methuselah of gnats.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by Brother Tim

Steven, with all of your wealth of research, have you found the life span of the common gnat? This one must be the Methuselah of gnats.

Tim, not sure on the life-span. Clearly some of these gnats are very healthy, versatile and robust. They may even have super-powers, able to fog the minds by the crumbling and crashing Bible critics and correctors.

However I will say it surprised me this AM to see Erasmus shooing those critics gnats away just like they are shooed in the King James Bible ! That was like a triple icing on the cake.

Shalom,
Steven

[Will Kinney]

Hi guys. As some of you may know, there is an ongoing discussion over at Fighting Fundamentalist Forum where a man with the screen name of freesundayschoollessons has challenged brother Steve and me to debate this phrase. In typical fashion, the guys who do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture in any bible in any language (free has at least admitted that this is his view), these men are guilty of the very thing the verse is talking about - they strain AT gnats and swallow the camel.

In any event, brother Brent Riggs posted a link to a Jeffrey Nachimson article and it has some really good info. Here are the pertinent quotes:

It is also worth noting, a fact also brought out by Jeff Nachimson, that the 3rd edition of Danker's Lexicon actually lists a new proper meaning: Quote: F. W. Danker's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd edition (2000): strain at'='strain [the liquid] at [seeing]' a gnat
<p>
James Murray's Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. S, under "Strain," also lists the reading of "strain AT a gnat" and affirms that it was NOT a mistranslation in the King James Bible, but a legitimate and accurate translation of the Greek text. --- def. 21 (1933): " to strain at: to make a difficulty of swallowing' or accepting (something); to scruple at. Also (rarely), to strain to do something. This use is due to misunderstanding of the phrase strain at a gnat' in Matt. xxiii. 24. It has been asserted that ‘straine at' in the Bible of 1611 is a misprint for ‘straine out', the rendering of earlier versions (see 14e). But quotes. 1583 and 1594 show that the translators of 1611 simply adopted a rendering that had already obtained currency. IT WAS NOT A MISTRANSLATION, THE MEANING INTENDED BEING 'WHICH STRAIN THE LIQUOR IF THEY FIND A GNAT IN IT'. (Caps are mine) The phrase, however, was early misapprehended (perh. already by Shakes. in quot. 1609), the verb being supposed to mean to make violent effort."

The King James Bible is ALWAYS right.

Accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1)

Will K

[Will Kinney]

Here is the link at the FFF is any of you are interested.

http://www.fundamentalforums.com/showthread.php?t=53531

Will K

[Steven Avery]

Thanks, Will.

Matthew 23:24 (KJB 1611)
Ye blind guides,
which straine at a gnat,
and swallow a camel.

At this time .. that anybody would actually claim a 'misprint' or a 'printer's error' against a mountain of evidence of all types would simply show that they are bound in confusion. There is no there there. History.

Even when Daniel Wallace was writing such 'scribal corruption == misprint' claims (along with floating the idea that the 1611 edition had 'strain out', significant for showing how totally disheveled and faulty was his 'scholarship') claims that to his embarrassment are still on the net, Daniel Wallace actually included the refuting Oxford English Dictionary reference .. albeit in a footnote .. that destroyed both his own major assertions and conjectures to try to claim the one 'definite error' to which King James Bible proponents would agree. How weird to include his own ultra-faulty and deficient scholarship as a base for such an untrue assertion about the defenders of the pure Bible and their understanding of the verse in Matthew.

The only sensible conjecture is that Wallace first wrote up the papers when he was even more ignorant of the history than today .. and did not want to change the articles to the truth when he discovered the Oxford reference. This would be pretty bad even for the run-of-the-mill anti-KJB crew, even worse for a person with a scholarship position as a teacher, researcher, etc. The leader of the anti-KJB pack and the most aggressive defender of the alexandrian corruptions among supposed 'evangelicals' even to the point of denying the resurrection accounts of the Lord Jesus, given by Mark and in virtually every text in every language and lots of early writers, as scripture. Can evangelical faith mix with textual apostasy ? Sweet and bitter. And now we know today that the refuting Oxford English Dictionary reference is only the iceberg tip of what was missed by Daniel Wallace in his 'one definite error' charade.

Now we have put together a mountain of evidence of all different types :

Scholarly sources, common sense, virtually absolute uniformity of King James Bible editions with one known, late, exception for 250+ years, a dozen or so previous usages of 'strain at' including usages available and involved with King James Bible translators, Erasmus giving a similar contextual usage added today, dissection of the tawdry accusation history, translator notes, the Constantin Hopf paper in 1944 and its reference to the Tymme Matthew translation of Marlorate's commentary and other evidences, the knowledge that real printer errors were often noted and fixed quickly - shewed to hewed being an example, the double-tawdry history of the added-on accusation that the original 1611 had "strain out". Rarely has a mountain of evidence been so Everest steep, and rarely have the opponents been as ill-equipped, stumbling in slippers and a night-robe up the mountain.

Every evidence combines to demonstrate that 'strain at a gnat' was a deliberate translation decision by a group of men well known for their excellent level of Greek and Latin language background and expertise. The type of expertise and background that is rare today.

Now if someone wants to argue that they consider 'strain out a gnat' the more viable or superior translation, or the correct translation, I believe the evidence is against them, quite strongly at this point. However it is at least a position that could be argued. And you would not expect a resolution, much like you will not expect a resolution with a cornfusenik on "God was manifest in the flesh .." or "her purification" or "only begotten Son".

You might end up journeying into the ancient Greek usages, usages that were discussed in a paper about two centuries ago You might end up discussing the rabbinics, as done by John Gill and others. You might end up with a few grammar and context and proverb and idiom discussions, a bit of which have been on this thread and some of which I am hoping to add in the days ahead.

My view - there really are two totally different questions One is the totally busted misprint canard, which I describe above. The other is the discussion about the superior translation, a fascinating discussion if the:

a) person with a differing view is sincere, writing with honesty and respect
b) misprint canard has been properly analyzed and discarded

If a person cannot see the misprint canard, with all the evidences arrayed, clearly they are pretty hopeless in any discussion on any aspect of the "strain at a gnat" Matthew 23:24 issues.

Shalom,
Steven

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Continuing - (while still enjoying the surprise of the Erasmus find).

We are now getting some of the fine material that I mentioned we could try to get - e.g from the article from Constantin Hopf the actual quotes from Thomas Tymme, translator of Augustine Marlorate's Matthew commentary, and the material from Eusebius Paget's translation of John Calvin's Harmonia. (These are substantive Christian works that significantly pre-date the King James Bible and most assuredly would be in the arsenal of the top scholars at Oxford and Cambridge who laboured on the King James Bible translation. Although they would be unlikely to be seen by the earlier translators from Tyndale on through to the original Geneva Bible edition which began around 1560.) And more.

First we have to omit one element from the mountain of evidences which we gave above.

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Scholarly sources, common sense, virtually absolute uniformity of King James Bible editions with one known, late, exception for 250+ years, a dozen or so previous usages of 'strain at' including usages available and involved with King James Bible translators, Erasmus giving a similar contextual usage added today, dissection of the tawdry accusation history, translator notes, the Constantin Hopf paper in 1944 and its reference to the Tymme Matthew translation of Marlorate's commentary and other evidences, the knowledge that real printer errors were often noted and fixed quickly - shewed to hewed being an example, the double-tawdry history of the added-on accusation that the original 1611 had "strain out". Rarely has a mountain of evidence been so Everest steep, and rarely have the opponents been as ill-equipped, stumbling in slippers and a night-robe up the mountain.

The aspect of the translator's notes was apparently a misunderstanding by Jeffrey Nachimson (Jeffrey put together a lot of fine material in an article going back to 2006) of the methodology of the Ward Allen book, corrected on one thread by Rick Norris. It was an apparently nice evidence that helped get this thread moving, scaffolding in a sense. However at this point with the mountain of evidences the removal of the notes from the above evidences is of little note. Thanks for this correction, Rick Norris.

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Every evidence combines to demonstrate that 'strain at a gnat' was a deliberate translation decision by a group of men well known for their excellent level of Greek and Latin language background and expertise. The type of expertise and background that is rare today.

Their incredible expertise in English needs to be mentioned as well, as the King James Bible is the #1 majestic English writing.

Shalom,
Steven

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

With thanks to the Constantin Hopf's 1944 paper, Jeffrey Nachimson and a poster or two on another forum (Bill R K and Mitex). Afaik, Jeffrey's paper is currently offline; so I would like to be cautious in not quoting Jeffrey directly, while thanking him for his insightful thoughts and for making the Cosntantin Hopf source material easily available.

Marlorate was quoting John Calvin's exposition here.

Augustine Marlorate's Latin Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Marloratus, Augustinus. Novi Testamenti Catholica Expositio Ecclesiastica)

".Ergo perinde faciunt, ac siquis tenuem panis micam colaret, integrum voraret panem. Culicem scimus pusillum esse animal: camelum ingentem belluam, nihil ergo magis ridiculum quam vinum vel aquam colare, ne culicem glutiendo fauces laedas, secure vero sorbere camelum." - Calvin, John. Harmonia Ex Tribus Euangelisitis Composita.,1563, p. 526

And this leads to the Thomas Tymme translation of Marlorate.

".They do therefore euen as if a man shoulde straine at a small crumme of bread, and swallow a whole loafe. Wee knowe that a gnat is a small creature, and a Camell, a huge beast: there is nothinge therefore more rydiculous, than to strayne in, wyne and water, least in swallowinge a gnat thou hurte thy Jawes, but careleslye to suppe vp a Camell."

We will discuss the import of this later, first we show simply the usage .

Shalom,
Steven